WARS Photography Award aspires to support photojournalists from around the world. The award is for professionals engaged in hostile environments working to offer important information on conflicts and their consequences on the community.

In 2019 Associazione 46 Parallelo/Atlante delle Guerre e dei Conflitti del Mondo” and Montura, sponsor of the award, together with Intersos NGO and Fondazione Museo Storico del Trentino, has launched the first edition of WARS Contest. Since than, the advent of Covid-19 has changed the world as we knew it, and also the way photojournalists have been documenting it. Due to the restrictions imposed as consequences of the spreading of the virus, many of photojournalists changed their plans to cover the emergency and the consequences of the coronavirus around the world. We have therefore decided, for this year, to add a new category for stories related to Covid-19.

We raised the prizes to €5.000, divided in two categories, to recognize the two winning projects.

How to enter

Two categories are admitted for WARS 2021.

• Photo stories related with Covid-19. All the pictures submitted to Covid-19 related story category must have been taken between January 1st, 2020 and July 31, 2021.

• Photo stories related with conflicts and their humanitarian and environmental consequences. At least five photographs of the story must have been shot after September 30, 2020. The rest of the images might date back to previous years.

A photo story is a series of images, from 10 to 15 photographs, on the same subject related to the topic. The stories can be published or unpublished.

Juror information

Kelli Grant | Photo Director Yahoo News
Currently the Photography Director for Yahoo News, Kelli’s past posts in her 28 years in the industry include, the US Director for PixWays, a photo technology company based in Paris, and a 13-year stint at Newsweek magazine serving her last seven as Director of Photo Operations. From war, sports & politics to fine art, Kelli has worked with photographers, photo agencies and publications of every genre around the world.

Francis Kohn has been working at AFP for most of his journalistic career, undertaking many assignments abroad. He was AFP photo director from January of 2012 to May 2017. He covered conflicts in central America and Mexico in the 90’s until 1995 when he became editor in chief for France for five years. From May 2000 to June 2006 he was back in Washington as editor in chief for North America. Under his tenure as photo director, AFP won two Pulitzer prizes in Photography and was a finalist in 2015. It received two Visa d’Or at Visa pour l’Image back to back in 2015 and 2016 and a number of World Press Photo awards among others. Francis Kohn was chairman of the World Press Photo jury in 2016. Since his retirement, he has continued to be involved in Photography and journalism, participating in a number of events worldwide.

Laurence Geai photojournalist, Winner of WARS 2019. Born in Paris, graduated in International Commerce. Laurence worked for a period of time for the fashion industry, until she decides to change direction and becomes a journalist. Starting to work for the television, she makes many reportages for different French television networks. Later Laurence approaches photography, a field she discovers at 26 years of age. She realizes her first reportage in 2013: Central Africa Republic, Syria, Israel/Palestine, Irak, visiting those countries in different occasions. She also focuses on the consequences of conflicts and migration flows. Laurence works for different media outlets in France and around the world: Paris Match, Le Monde, Polka, Libération, La Croix,La Vie, Le Nouvel Observateur, le Jdd, Le Pelerin, the Washington Post. Laurence Geai is the recipient of 2019 WARS Contest.

Article 1 - The Contest

WARS - War and Revolutionary Stories - is a free photography contest open to all professional journalists of age from any country of origin.

The award is focused on current conflicts around the world looking at both the causes and consequences of war, including topics such as victims, refugees, humanitarian and environmental disasters, unequal wealth distribution and lack of Human Rights.

For the first year we introduced a second category for stories related on Covid-19.

Article 2 - Terms and conditions

The submitted photos must be true representation of reality and should not be posed or set up. Portraits are excepted but it must be clearly stated in the captions of the photo (IPTC). Photographs must be submitted through Picter from August 20, 2021 and no later than October 4, 2021.

Admitted photos might be digital or analogic (scanned and saved as in art. 3). Basic post production is allowed, but the meaning must not be by any means altered through digital post production softwares. Photographs can be in color or black and white. Files altered to sepia tones are not accepted.

Any subjects and objects cannot be added/removed from the images. Photos must not be distorted and only single exposures are allowed. Photomontages are not accepted.

In case of doubts about the veracity of the images, the award direction might ask the candidate for the original files (RAW), which, if not submitted within 4 days from the formal request, can disqualify the candidate from the contest.

Article 3 - photography specifics

Two categories are admitted for WARS 2021.

• Photo stories related with Covid-19. All the pictures submitted to Covid-19 related story category must have been taken between January 1st, 2020 and July 31, 2021.

• Photo stories related with conflicts and their humanitarian and environmental consequences. At least five photographs of the story must have been shot after September 30, 2020. The rest of the images might date back to previous years.

A photo story is a series of images, from 10 to 15 photographs, on the same subject related to the topic. The stories can be published or unpublished.

The photos must be saved in .jpg at least 3000px (long side). Each photo cannot exceed 5MB in size. We suggest using color profile Adobe RGB for color pictures and grayscale Gamma 2.2 for black and white.

Photographs must not show the photographer’s name, agency, publication and other kind of information: captions must be included in the metadata (IPTC) of the images. Each image must be presented with detailed journalistic information in English, answering to the Five Ws (Who? What? When? Where? Why?). Five Ws are the questions whose answers are considered the basic information to complete the photo.

Article 4 - Jury

The Jury of WARS 2021 is composed by Yahoo News Senior Photo-editor Kelli Grant, former AFP Director Francis Kohn and the 2019 WARS recipient, photojournalist Laurence Geai.

The internationally renowned photographer and journalist Fabio Bucciarelli is the Artistic Director of the prize and the exhibitions. The WARS Award Direction will judge the competitors’ admission criteria and the neutrality of the jury. All application will be examined and valued equally by the jury.

Article 5 - Award

A winner photographer and two finalists for each category will be selected by the jury. After the judging process, the two winner photographers and the names of the four finalists will be released on the website www.atlanteguerre.it in November 2021. The two first places winners (one for the story related to Covid-19 and one for the story related to conflicts and consequences) will receive a cash prize of 2.500 € each through a money transfer from the association “46 Parallelo” within sixty (60) days from the announcement.

Due to the restrictions imposed by Covid-19, the organization will evaluate the possibility of a physical or digital exhibition.

Article 6 - Rights and Duties

The photographer must be the author and the copyright owner of the submitted images. The photographers will always maintain the ownership of the copyright of the submitted photos. The winners and the finalists guarantee the non-exclusive right of use of the images to the association “46 Parallelo” for the communication on all medias, including social media, online, print and the possible exhibitions, the “Atlas of Wars and Conflicts” and all the promotional activities regarding the award without any remuneration.

Association “46 Parallelo” always guarantees to credit the author of the photographs, committing not to give others the right of use of the images outside the contexts and publications named above.

The winners and finalists of WARS 2021 Award commit themselves to provide to association “46 Parallelo” high quality images, in order to allow large format prints for the digital/physical exhibition.

Further infos

"Associazione 46 Parallelo/Atlante delle Guerre e dei Conflitti del Mondo” was born in Trento in 2008, founded by a group of journalists and reporters engaged in documenting conflict zones. In the last decade the Association has been involved in several projects in school, universities and museum including talks, photography exhibitions, film and documentaries. 46° Parallelo is the editor of the annual publication The Atlas of Wars and Conflict, a map of conflicts around the world, in collaboration with Amnesty International, UNHCR and MSF. For more information please visit atlanteguerre.it

WARS Photography Award is a project in partnership with Montura, with the support of Fondazione Museo Storico del Trentino and InterSOS NGO.